Saturday, December 28, 2013

Good afternoon. Hope you all had a good Christmas. We just had a relaxing Christmas day with turkey and the trimmings and our annual game of after lunch Trivial Pursuit. I even found time to watch some of my new Downton Abbey DVD before lunch! On Boxing Day we got up at 5am and went down to Geelong to take some photos of the sun rise and then hit the sales. We were home by 11am just as the crowds were getting larger.

I can now do a full reveal of my layout that I gave you a sneak of last week.

Summer seems to have finally arrived here in Victoria! I have a summery layout to share of my sons first trip to the beach. It wasn’t so warm that day. We had to wrap him up in a towel to keep warm but eventually he got out and had fun playing in the sand. I love bright layouts and found FWAB’s Outdoor Range to be perfect for this.

I have used some of the pieces from FWAB’s Nicky’s Beach Huts. They have quite a shimmer on them that you can just about make out in this photo. Here I layered 2 of the beach huts and added the banner along the bottom.

I was struck by how the beach hut was arrow shaped when you lay it horizontally. So here I have used one as an arrow and just added a sentiment on top. You would never know it was supposed to be a beach hut!

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Although December isn't a particularly busy time in our household - we normally have a quiet Christmas with just our family and now the kids are teenagers there's not many school or club Christmas activities to go to - time seems to have got away from me and I'm sad to say I've only created one layout and a couple of cards this month so far.

I have been busy painting a friend's extension nearly every day besides doing my normal work from home and now the kids are on school holidays. Hopefully, with some new scrap goodies for Christmas and a break from work I will feel invigoured to scrap!

Today I have a 'just because' layout to share with you featuring lots of Purple Pumpkin goodies. I actually started it on retreat at the beginning of October but am only getting around to sharing it now. This a photo of my son at SeaWorld in Queensland.

Some close up shots of the Purple Pumpkin goodies used. First up a skull and crossbones resin cameo. I have wound some red twine around it to make it stand out more against the black cog.

Next I have used a skull and crossbones flair button situated atop a black vinyl cog.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Off the Rails is a new challenge blog and their first challenge was to use acetate on your layout/card/project.

Now that all my Christmas cards have been posted, I felt inclined to make a Christmas card! I decided to make a shaker card so have an acetate panel in it. I used Jillibean Soup Christmas Eve Chowder and Southern Chicken Dumpling Soup pp. I cut a panel of penguins from one of the papers. Added some foam tape and glitter then sealed in with acetate. I even used an acetate snowflake as a simple embellishment.

Anyway here is my card:

Anyway, I had a bit of spare card left so made a quick simple second card, this time using a Bite size bit from the Christmas Eve Chowder paper and adding some pink glitter and a few snowflakes to the acetate window.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

I decided to continue with my cat theme with the final CSI challenge for November.

I created a mixed media background using 3 different The Crafters Workshop templates and 3 different mediums - paint, texture paint mixed with paint and Viva Ferro. I also stamped some frames and bricks , added some watercolour paint and some washi tape. With all this I decided there was really no need for any further embellishment other than the flashcard tucked under the photo and the wood veneer arrow (both part of my evidence).

Friday, December 6, 2013

This month I've been playing along with CSI and this is a layout I created for Challenge #99. The photo is of one of my adopted cats Smidge. We often see him sitting up on top of our lattice screen. He started doing it as it thought he could get closer to the birds but without luck.

I created a background using some texture paste and a stencil. Then I washed over it with some watercolour paints to create a subtle blue and green background. I also painted some clouds through another stencil using watercolour paints and then gesso to subdue them a bit.

My testimony: I used 2 types of writing for my journalling - handwriting and motex labelling. I also used the inspiration words - fly, gaze and reflect.My journalling reads: Smidge can often be found sitting high up on top of our lattice screen. He sits there gazing down on the world and reflecting on life. I'm sure he wishes he could fly so that he could catch the birds that are so close!

Check out the FWAB blog here for some other samples from our design team.

Looking forward to seeing lots of projects in the gallery. Upload them into the DT Judith Armstrong Christmas Tree challenge December 2013 folder in the FWAB gallery by midnight 31st December 2013 and you could win a fabulous FWAB prize pack.

You have until the end of the month to complete this Sketch Challenge and link it up in our sidebar by midnight 31st of December 2013. There will be two fabulous Purple Pumpkin prizes!

$25 & 15$ to spend in the Purple Pumpkin shop - one winner will be chosen by the design team, and the second will be a random prize draw.Winner gets to Guest Design in a future month - once they have received their Purple Pumpkin product of course!

Monday, November 25, 2013

I had great fun playing along with CSI again this last week. I was having trouble deciding what papers to use when I saw this month's sketch over at My Minds Eye and thought it would be perfect for the story I wanted to tell about Smidge and it also brought to mind some MME patterned papers that were the perfect colours for this challenge. I used pieces of Lime Twist plus some MME stickers and alphas.

Added to this I used some Studio Calico wood veneer cats, a wood veneer frame and 2 cork frames from the Trinket Track which I inked using some chalk ink.

The evidence I used from this case file was polka dots, frames and wood. My testimony was to write as a bedtime story.

And here is the MME sketch on which I based my layout:

I can see myself using this sketch again as I love using multi photos on my layouts and am always looking for new ways to do this.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Today I'm sharing my full layout which went up on the FWAB blog last week. The photo on this layout features by Great Great Grandparents with their 12 children and spouses of those that had them at the time. It was taken about 1901. It’s amazing to think that they managed to bring up 12 children to adulthood given the amount of infant and childhood deaths at the time.

To create the layout I used a piece of Bo Bunny Welcome Home patterned paper for my base. I added some green brick stamping and sprayed some Studio Calico Mr Huey Calico spray through a stencil. I then added some dots of texture paste through another stencil and finally sprayed some Lindy’s Stamp Gang Starburst Cattail Copper Brown to give it a bit of a metallic sheen.

Then I built up my layers behind the photo using some more Bo Bunny Welcome Home patterned paper and some die cuts from the same collection. I then added my FWAB goodies – 2 white Maddison flowers, a FWAB Luke Flourish in Bronze and a Chloe Pearl Flourish in Olive Green both of which I cut up into sections to make them go further. I also used a few spare pearls from the Chloe Pearl Flourish to dot around the layout.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Hot on the heals of being selected Most Wanted on the last CSI challenge, I have completed Case #97.

I always love Em's sketches and the colour scheme was pretty cool too.

Here is my take on it.

My evidence is:

pattern background; leaves, wood, chevrons; and something shiny. My testimony was to spread the story across 3 journalling spots. My journalling reads: It is bittersweet watching the tigers at the zoo. On the one hand it is wonderful to get so close to such magnificent and beautiful creatures and the zoos are doing a great job of preserving them. On the other hand, it is so sad that they are such an endangered species and incomprehensible how they can still be under threat from poachers. Let's hope they can be saved!

And some close ups

I used a Crafters Workshop stencil and some texture paste to create the leaves around the photos.